Hope in Resilience

Visiting the villages across the River Juba brings forth an array of mixed emotions. The lush green crops and the cool weather easily draw one to the area as you go toward the banks of River Juba from Dolow town in Gedo region of southern Somalia.

Inhabitants across the river are the Bantu Somali, farmers who rely on agricultural activities to make a living.  As they live across the river they are cut off from the town including access to health facilities and shops to gather basic supplies.  Their mode of transport across the river is a small raft made of empty drums and thin logs tied up with rope.

Across River Juba is Bantal village in Dolow. This is one of the villages that were targeted in the area for the previous and current World Vision OFDA grant that focus on agricultural livelihoods. 

Walking through the farms gives one the emergence of hope that good harvests are a possibility in Dolow. When I visited Bantal village in September, the sweet potato crops, green and healthy held a lot of promise, with only a month to go before harvest. The maize seemed not to have had a good season but all was not lost since it could be used as fodder.

The irrigation basins and hand dug irrigation canals shows the industriousness of the farmers. The thought that the 2015 El Nino season may cause the River Juba to burst its banks means that the whole farmland will be under water, leaving a trail of destruction in its path.

The Juba River has a mind of its own. When it floods in the Ethiopian highlands, it takes approximately 15 days for it to flood downstream to Dolow. The river has a natural break point that flood waters go through forming tributaries then flood the farms up to one kilometer from the river bank.

A raft use by the communities to cross River Juba

Though flood waters may not reach the communities, houses, their farmlands will be totally submerged which will lead to crop destruction and an increase in human and livestock diseases. Luuq town, about 80 km away from Bantal will also be cut off if the Juba bursts its banks. Access into Luuq will be challenging as the bridge which is the main access in and out of town may be washed away.

Early warning signs that rains are coming are already being experienced by both communities in Luuq and Dolow.  According to the farmers I spoke with, this includes seeing birds flying further inland and strong winds blowing. With the El Nino that was most severe in 1997, snakes, crocodiles and other reptiles moved to higher ground to escape the flood waters threatening humans and livestock.  This historical information is key in informing World Vision’s prepositioning and planning for response. Other issues to put into consideration are livestock nutrition and health that need to be addressed before the flood waters rise.

Breaking points of River Juba

Though World Vision and INGOs are sensitizing the communities on the risk of the flood waters, some of the early preparation that the communities are doing is alerting the shopkeepers to stock up on supplies before the river floods.  Farmers in Bantal village will harvest their crops early incase the flood waters rise and use them as fodder.  All their preparations are done in coordination with their village chief.  Further interventions will be needed to restore the livelihood of the affected communities including distribution of appropriate seeds and medication to treat diseases that would most likely break out after the floods.

A sweet potato crop. Farmers will be forced to harvest it and use it as fodder due to the floods.

Though the floods may come and farmlands and irrigation canals destroyed, after every flooding, the sorghum harvest is normally above average, giving the communities hope that all is not lost. The communities have since learnt to be innovative in the types of tools they use to cultivate – using a long stick with a sharp tip to enable precise penetration into the soil when planting. Flood waters may destroy livelihoods but what remains significant is building the resilience of the communities to withstand the brutal effects of disasters that they will encounter.